Análisis Morfotectónico de la Isla Puerto Rico, Caribe

Abstract

Puerto Rico is a relatively small sub aerial exposure of the Greater Antilles Arc. New morphotectonic analyses indicate that Puerto Rico is an emergent and tectoni- cally active macroblock at the northeast edge of the Caribbean-North American plate boundary. The delimited macroblock is asymmetric from the morphotectonic point of view, and consists of a northern mesoblock and a southern mesoblock. The northern mesoblock is larger and more tectonically active. The northern and south- ern mesoblocks include a total of 18 blocks, 31 microblocks and 55 nanoblocks. Ten major lineaments and 83 lineament intersections, 12 of which are the principal intersections, are identified within the northern and southern mesoblocks. The prin- cipal intersections are the most tectonically active part of the studied area, and indi- cate fault segmentation, block rotation and low seismic activity. All the quantitative and qualitative information and cartographic materials are on a GIS.